Mr Average
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Post by Mr Average on May 27, 2019 15:23:16 GMT
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stuke
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Post by stuke on May 27, 2019 18:24:58 GMT
The Flea! Read about him a couple of years ago. I've known people bw very strong well beyond what you would think by looking at them. One really skinny lad at work told us he used to armwrestle in bars in Australia - nothing organised as such, just drom time to time and for a bit of monwy. I had no expectations of beating him, but gave it my best anyway and he just went straight through me...
My 18 stonecbodybuklilder friend with 19"arms had one with him and won, but it was not anywhere near as easy as he thought it was going to be.
You don't have to be big to be very strong.
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Post by mr potatohead on May 27, 2019 21:30:14 GMT
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macky
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Post by macky on May 28, 2019 9:30:16 GMT
Alexander Zass was a classic example of a fairly small guy being exceedingly strong. The others in the youtube are bigger than Zass is.
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Post by stormshadow on May 29, 2019 2:55:39 GMT
I thought of him too Macky. My experience has been that the following people are quite often very strong: iron rod or horse shoe benders, odd object lifters, stone Mason's, coal miners, stevedores (longshoremen) , old timer lumberjacks (prior to chain saws), steelworkers, blacksmiths, farmers and some carpenters. One of the strongest people I ever knew worked road crew and was a jackhammer operator. He let me use one for five minutes. I felt like I had been beaten with a tire iron for days. Also very good wrestlers, judoka and grapplers are also quite strong. One thing that usually goes with great overall strength is above average grip and forearm strength. I grew up in PA and there were many of them. Also notice that many of them do some type of isometric holding while working. Many of them were very strong but relatively compact people.
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Post by Alan OldStudent on May 29, 2019 4:22:56 GMT
Alexander Zass was a classic example of a fairly small guy being exceedingly strong. The others in the youtube are bigger than Zass is.
At about 1.07 or 1.08 seconds, he clearly is using his body weight instead of muscle power to bend that iron. So I don't believe that bar was as stout as one might think from looking at its dimensions. In other videos I've seen of him, some things seemed faked to me. For instance, no amount of strength training can harden your hair follicles or your dental roots. I'm referring to his hair pulls and pulling a car with a rope between his teeth.
No doubt, he was quite strong, but he was also a stage magician and used trickery.
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macky
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Post by macky on May 29, 2019 6:38:41 GMT
I thought of him too Macky. My experience has been that the following people are quite often very strong: iron rod or horse shoe benders, odd object lifters, stone Mason's, coal miners, stevedores (longshoremen) , old timer lumberjacks (prior to chain saws), steelworkers, blacksmiths, farmers and some carpenters. One of the strongest people I ever knew worked road crew and was a jackhammer operator. He let me use one for five minutes. I felt like I had been beaten with a tire iron for days. Also very good wrestlers, judoka and grapplers are also quite strong. One thing that usually goes with great overall strength is above average grip and forearm strength. I grew up in PA and there were many of them. Also notice that many of them do some type of isometric holding while working. Many of them were very strong but relatively compact people.
Yes it's like everything else, you have to get used to whatever you're working with, but there certainly are outstanding examples of strength demonstrated in the everyday working world. Many unsung heroes, so to speak.
On the lines we had to place a guy each side of the pole in order to work against each other undoing rusty arm bolts/nuts, using box and shark-tooth spanners. One was not able to brace with the legs because of standing on a ladder rung with both feet together so you sort of braced against your safety belt. It was isometric to begin with until the nut began to move, the other guy sometimes calling out to stop while he took another grip, and the whole thing after that was slow grinding until the nut was far out enough to get a hacksaw in to saw the bolt off, otherwise you had a long haul taking the nut right off by spannering it.
We got good at carrying poles too after a few months of practice. Through fields and up bush tracks cut into the bush to get a pole where it needed to be set up, then digging a few inches at a time through rock until a hole 5' 6" was dug and the pole set up by hand, held steady and the gravel rammed while being shovelled back in.
The strongest pound for pound I knew were old time lumberjacks who sawed large trees down and swung axes where necessary. Most of the ones I knew about were no more than 160lb, tough as goatshit and fit to bust. Ex-soldiers I worked with on various jobs spoke of jungle warfare where the big guys would end up having to have their rifles carried for them, because as they sweated more they lost their strength quicker.
In the sticking pens in the abattoirs where I worked in Australia for five months there were three teams of three guys each and to do the tally (2500) for the day we had to scruff, stick and shackle about 6 wethers a minute. The heat was tremendous and we were all continuously drinking water out of the taps. There was nobody in there above 13 stone (182 pounds ) which these days is only small compared to some of the giants around now. People seem to be getting bigger by the generation.
I agree with your comment re above average grip and forearm strength. If you haven't got it, how can you apply your back and shoulders at full advantage ?
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macky
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Post by macky on May 29, 2019 6:51:24 GMT
Alexander Zass was a classic example of a fairly small guy being exceedingly strong. The others in the youtube are bigger than Zass is. At about 1.07 or 1.08 seconds, he clearly is using his body weight instead of muscle power to bend that iron. So I don't believe that bar was as stout as one might think from looking at its dimensions. In other videos I've seen of him, some things seemed faked to me. For instance, no amount of strength training can harden your hair follicles or your dental roots. I'm referring to his hair pulls and pulling a car with a rope between his teeth.
No doubt, he was quite strong, but he was also a stage magician and used trickery.
I'm not saying you're wrong Alan, but I thought Zass was "only" a strongman, not a magician. I have no doubt there would be some stage "advantages" undertaken for a smooth performance before an audience, but there are photos of Zass with a girder that he is holding up off the ground by his teeth (and it doesn't look like anything else), and other photos such as the piano strapped to his back with a lady playing it etc.
I did notice what you are saying re the bodyweight bending of the iron, but what about the pounding of the board on his midriff with the sledgehammers ?
Apparently he had chains examined by onlookers before breaking them, and at the last, is the story about Zass breaking his chains in the military prison and escaping by bending the window bars around, not true ? There are some ferocious steel benders around today, couldn't Zass have done the same ?
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jonrock
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Post by jonrock on May 29, 2019 22:46:07 GMT
sierraexercise.proboards.com/thread/1386/neck-strengthRefer to my post down the page, the guy hanging from one foot holding a beam with his teeth is Zass. I don't think and have not found anything suspicious (but don't know for sure 100%) regarding Zass using any kind of tricks. Other famous strongmen claims are...dubious, to say the least. Goerner and his one hand 700 lb deadlift (and other deadlifts of his), Sandow and his measurements and lifts, some claims about the Mighty Atom, lots of guys from lots of eras... On the other hand: Maxick, Hackenschmidt, Zass (details on a great lifter talking about the authenticity of his lifts are in sandowplus), Saxon's oficial bent press record, etc...no snake oil, truthful guys.
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Post by Alan OldStudent on May 30, 2019 4:50:17 GMT
At about 1.07 or 1.08 seconds, he clearly is using his body weight instead of muscle power to bend that iron. So I don't believe that bar was as stout as one might think from looking at its dimensions. In other videos I've seen of him, some things seemed faked to me. For instance, no amount of strength training can harden your hair follicles or your dental roots. I'm referring to his hair pulls and pulling a car with a rope between his teeth.
No doubt, he was quite strong, but he was also a stage magician and used trickery.
I'm not saying you're wrong Alan, but I thought Zass was "only" a strongman, not a magician. I have no doubt there would be some stage "advantages" undertaken for a smooth performance before an audience, but there are photos of Zass with a girder that he is holding up off the ground by his teeth... Macky, I'm highly skeptical about the guy holding a girder with his teeth. More than the jaw muscles would be involved in this. There's also the anatomy of the teeth, which are embedded in the jaw. No amount of jaw strength can keep teeth from being forcibly removed from the mouth. The tooth is attached to the jaw bone via the root, which is embedded in the jaw, and it can be pulled out by the weight of a heavy girder, or even a dope slap delivered with a baseball bat. Check out this link for a bit about tooth anatomy.
The hair is attached to the scalp via a root in the skin, and again, no amount of muscle is going to prevent it from being yanked out by a force that is strong enough. How strong? I don't know, and no doubt it varies from individual to individual. But physical strength plays no part in determining this.
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macky
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Post by macky on May 30, 2019 6:14:59 GMT
I'm not saying you're wrong Alan, but I thought Zass was "only" a strongman, not a magician. I have no doubt there would be some stage "advantages" undertaken for a smooth performance before an audience, but there are photos of Zass with a girder that he is holding up off the ground by his teeth... Macky, I'm highly skeptical about the guy holding a girder with his teeth. More than the jaw muscles would be involved in this. There's also the anatomy of the teeth, which are embedded in the jaw. No amount of jaw strength can keep teeth from being forcibly removed from the mouth. The tooth is attached to the jaw bone via the root, which is embedded in the jaw, and it can be pulled out by the weight of a heavy girder, or even a dope slap delivered with a baseball bat. Check out this link for a bit about tooth anatomy.
The hair is attached to the scalp via a root in the skin, and again, no amount of muscle is going to prevent it from being yanked out by a force that is strong enough. How strong? I don't know, and no doubt it varies from individual to individual. But physical strength plays no part in determining this.
Alan, I do not have your higher level of physiology knowledge to present any kind of a decent debate on whether Zass was actually lifting the girder via his jaw/teeth. If somehow there was some sort of neck brace reinforcing the lift of the girder that is not noticeable in the photo, would you not think that assuming the girder actually did weigh 500 pounds, it would still be a superior demonstration of great strength ?
How about the photo of Zass sloshing through the water carrying a horse, albeit a small one ? Could that photo have been fake ? The piano and player on his back ? The catching of persons fired from a cannon, said persons shown in the air ?
In short, re my original post on this thread, would not Zass be a good example of a fairly small person who possessed great strength ?
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jonrock
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Post by jonrock on May 30, 2019 6:48:06 GMT
Ehem...
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jonrock
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Post by jonrock on May 30, 2019 8:13:57 GMT
Alexander Zass was a classic example of a fairly small guy being exceedingly strong. The others in the youtube are bigger than Zass is.
At about 1.07 or 1.08 seconds, he clearly is using his body weight instead of muscle power to bend that iron. So I don't believe that bar was as stout as one might think from looking at its dimensions. In other videos I've seen of him, some things seemed faked to me. For instance, no amount of strength training can harden your hair follicles or your dental roots. I'm referring to his hair pulls and pulling a car with a rope between his teeth.
No doubt, he was quite strong, but he was also a stage magician and used trickery.
I see what you mean, it seems to me reposturing for continuing the bend. Even if he was using his weight (70-75 kg), it is negligible compared to the force necessary to bend it AND the bar is already bent...
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Post by Bruce Tackett on May 30, 2019 18:56:15 GMT
The winners of the strong man contests always seem to be the biggest.
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macky
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Post by macky on May 30, 2019 19:34:16 GMT
Granted, Bruce. I think it's safe to say that a good big man will usually be stronger than a good small man.
But how about Denis Rogers ? I don't know for sure, but he doesn't seem to be a big guy in his photos. And some of the old-timers like Maxick were quite small, by today's standards.
Farmer Burns etc ……...
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